Top 5 Law Firms in New York and London

Here are the 5 largest law firms in London and New York based on revenue. Information was compiled by The Lawyer and The American Lawyer and is based on 2007 revenues.

1. Clifford Chance, London - $2,660.5m / £1,727.2m

2. Linklaters, London - $2,588.5m / £1,680.5m

3. Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, London - $2,358.5m / £1,531.1m

4. Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom, New York City - $2,170m / £1,408.8m

5. Allen & Overy, London - $2,034m / £1,320.5m


2010 revenues as compiled by The American Lawyer

1. Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom, New York City - $2,100m / £1,354m

2. Clifford Chance, London - $1,874.5m / £1,209m

3. Linklaters, London - $1,852.5m / £1,195m

4. Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, London - $1,787m / £1,152m

5. Allen & Overy, London - $1,644m / £1,060m

Top 5 Most Famous and Influential Londoners

1. Queen Elizabeth II tops my list for being the most famous and influential Londoner of all time. "The Queen" as she is affectionately known the world over has demonstrated to us all how to carry on delivering service to her country through challenging times and in the face of adversity several times over during her 61 year reign. Whilst remaining constitutional Monarch over 16 Sovereign States The Queen has steered the British Monarchy into the modern era embracing social media and popular culture.

2. Queen Victoria was also the Empress of India and was the last Monarch of the House of Hanover and the longest reigning Monarch in British history. The Victorian era was responsible for a huge expansion of the British Empire and along with it great industrial and political changes which remain at the heart of much of our world today. The disciplined approach Queen Victoria delivered to her stewardship of the crown laid the foundations for Britain becoming the foremost global superpower of it's time.

3. William Shakespeare. Whilst the top two places on this list are reserved for royalty, the global reach of Shakespeare's work, across languages by expanding the potential of characterisation, plot, language and genre ensured that his work remained posthumously central to the study of literature - particularly in the English speaking world. Shakespeare influenced many famous novelists after his time, including Charles Dickens at number 4 on this list.

4. Charles Dickens. Although Dickens was born in Portsmouth, the nomadic nature of his family live allows him entry to this exclusive list - and many of his novels continue to capture the imagination the world over of the magical side of Victorian London with some of the most fascinating characters seared into popular culture including Ebenezer Scrooge, The Artful Dodger, Oliver Twist and David Copperfield.

5. Tim Berners Lee is widely credited as being the inventor of the world wide web, assembling a set of tools already in existence to create the phenomenon which nowadays it is hard to imagine being without. TBLs entry on this list is down to the sheer scale of transformation the world wide web has had on the world over such a short period of time.

The Top 5 Museums in London and New York

The Louvre in Paris is the envy of every major city in the world containing more than 380,000 objects and displaying 35,000 works of art which attract 8.5 million visitors every year, more than any other museum in the world. London and New York City also boast some very impressive museums with vast collections of art and artefacts. Here is a list of what are considered to be the best 5 of the bunch.

1. The British Museum, London

The British Museum sees around 6 million visitors pass through it's doors each year to see an impressive 13 million different objects from representing the rich history of human culture around the world reflecting London's global presence. The British Museum houses relics from virtually every civilization in the world including Chines, Asian, Aztec and Classical Art. The must see artefacts at the BM are the Egyptian Mummies, the Rosetta Stone and the Elgin Marbles. The building is impressive too. The central quadrangle was redeveloped to a design by Foster & Partners to become the Queen Elizabeth II Great Court and is the largest covered square in Europe. Architects Rogers Stirk Harbour & Partners are the designers behind a £100million new World Conservation and Exhibition Centre to house many of the temporary displays. Incredible since admission to the British Museum is free.

2. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City

The main building at "the Met" is one of the largest art galleries in the world attracting around 5 million visitors every year. The Museum Highlights tour is the best way of seeing the Met as it covers roughly 1.6 million square feet. Highlights include the Temple of Dendur in the Egyptian collection in a purpose built glass walled gallery with views over Central Park as well as Adam & Eve, a well known engraving by Albrecht Durer. The Met houses everything from Islamic art and European paitings to collections of arms and armour. The entrance fee is $20 for adults, $15 for seniors and $10 for students with children and members free.

3. The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York City

At the moment, the Museum of Modern Art has a wonderful Matisse exhibition concentrating on four years of the painters life: Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913-1917. The exhibition impressively sets some of the work of Matisse amongst other works of the time which helped inspire and engineer the style of Matisse. The show also uses x-rays and computer enhanced technology to demonstrate how much work went into some of the pieces. It is this kind of delivery that has given MoMA the reputation of being one of the foremost galleries for modern art in the world. From an initial gift of eight prints and one drawing, the museum now has a collection of over 150,000 paintings, drawings, sculptures, photographs, architectural models and more. It also has a massive archive of over 22,000 films and 4,000,000 stills, 300,000 books on art and files on more than 70,000 artists which contribute to MoMA's mission to be one of the principle primary sources of information on modern art in the world today.

4. Tate Modern, London

London's Tate modern used to be a power station which is built on the bank of the River Thames and has been magficently transformed into one of the best art galleries in the world. The huge turbine room provides an impressive entrance to the gallery which links up with The City via the Norman Foster designed Millenium Bridge over The Thames. The gallery is large, bright and airy with room upon room of cartoon, pop, sculpture as well as more iconic twentieth century artists such as Matisse, Moore, Dali and Picasso. The Tate Modern only opened in 2000 yet last year saw 4,700,000 visitors pass through it's doors.

5. The National Gallery, London

The National Gallery in London stands very grandly on the north side of Trafalgar Square, a busy square incorporating Nelson's Column, the statues of lions and the water fountains. Similar to the MoMA it was founded to house a collection of just 36 paintings. Today it houses works from almost every major school of art with over 2,300 paintings. The collection includes Rembrandt, Monet and Van Gogh and similar to the Metroploitan Museum of Art in New York. The best way to navigate the National Gallery is with one of the guided tours which is free of charge as is entry to the gallery although donations are appreciated. The National Gallery saw about 4,700,000 visitors in 2009.

The London Eye

It seems like yesterday that The London Eye was under construction on the banks of the River Thames. More than ten years have passed since the original British Airways London Eye opened to the public as the largest observation wheel in the world. Since it's construction the wheel has become a major landmark and tourist attraction with more than 35 million people having ridden the wheel since it's opening.

The London Eye, which is now owned by Merlin Entertainment, incorporates 32 air conditioned capsules which take approximately 30 minutes to complete one revolution, giving up to 25 passengers in each pod views of London and beyond up to a distance of 45 miles on a clear day. Construction of the wheel was achieved by floating sections up the River Thames on barges and assembling it in situ on top of huge piles before the wheel was hoisted up in two phases.

Initially the project was a joint venture between British Airways and the Marks Barfield Family who were the lead architects on the project. Nowadays, with the British Airways association dropped, the wheel is owned by the Merlin Entertainments after it's takeover of The Tussauds Group who took ownership of the wheel in 2006. This video demonstrates some of the construction of a landmark which has become synonymous with the London skyline in it's tenth year of operation.

Click here to rate the London Eye.

Top 6 Investment Banks in London and New York

Here is a list of the 6 largest financial services companies with investment banking operations headquartered in London and New York by market capitalisation.

1. HSBC, London - $173.5bn / £111.325bn

2. JP Morgan Chase - New York City - $147.27bn / £94.5bn

3. Citigroup, New York City - $108.65bn / $69.7bn

4. Goldman Sachs, New York City - $76.434bn / £49.044bn

5. Barclays, London - $59.6bn / £38.23bn

6. Morgan Stanley, New York City - $36.21bn / £23.23bn

Top Architectural Practices: Kohn Pedersen Fox

I am starting a small series of posts on architectural practices that are responsible for the wonderful design of the built environment around us in London and New York with the same format as all my other blog posts , simple, informative and bitesize, starting with New York based architects Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF).

There are not many large scale projects around the world that have not had KPF at least run for the design commission, needless to say the New York headquartered firm are one the best known architects within the arena of large office projects and renovation. The firm was started in July 1976 and is a great example of a business which has grown from the seed of doing the first project well and receiving commissions of the back of that first 'good job done well'. Shortly after A Eugene Kohn, William Pedersen and Sheldon Fox founded the company, the American Broadcasting Corporation chose the partners to redevelop and old armoury building in Manhattan to house offices and a TV studio which led to 11 further commissions in the years following. The expansion to a global service offering was inevitable when New York based investment bank Goldman Sachs had a requirement for it's European headquarters in London which coincided with the time that London's Canary Wharf started to commission large scale office projects.

Nowadays, KPF's portfolio of properties spans the globe in more than 35 countries and London and New York form a very small part of the arena in which the firm operates. Perhaps the best known project in New York is the Museum of Modern Art and in London there are two projects which stand out that are currently under construction - the Bishopsgate Tower which is just appearing at street level and Heron Tower which is closer to completion.

London's Heron Tower courted controversy in 2009 when five project architects broke away from KPF to form their own outfit, PLP Architecture after the refusal of KPF to allow a buyout of their London operation. Despite clauses in contracts which would not normally allow employees of KPF to communicate with clients after their departure from the company, KPF and the new firm have hammered out a formal relationship. KPF are now faced with a seasoned competitor in London which has grown to more than 65 employees and has already been successful in bagging the second phase of Herons Development, Heron Plaza.